Photo from One Lovely Hour, A Dining Experience. Photo credit: Gabriel Li.
OCAD U congratulates its community members who have won the 2023 DesignTO Awards, following the DesignTO Festival which took place this year from January 20 to 29.
The DesignTO Awards recognize excellence at the DesignTO Festival, Canada’s leading and largest annual design festival that celebrates design as a multidisciplinary form of creative thinking and making. The Awards are presented by Yabu Pushelberg and DIALOG, celebrating the talent, expression and diversity of designers from Toronto and abroad.
Here are the winners from the OCAD U community!
Community Wellbeing Award - Democratizing the Creation of Furniture by DESIGNwith
Associate Professor Ranee Lee is the founder of DESIGNwith, which hosted a furniture collection exhibition, designed by Lee alongside current Industrial Design students Ernesto Ramirez and Katya Koroscil, who is also a DESIGNwith intern, and Lee Fletcher. Work by students and OCAD U competition winners Brandon Siow, Prem Thakkar, Senthurri Thiruchenthooran was also on view.
Juror’s Choice Award (selected by Boris Yu) – One Lovely Hour, A Dining Experience by Ranee Lee, Amanda Huynh, Charlotte Reiter
Associate Professor Ranee Lee collaborated with Amanda Huynh, industrial designer and professor from Pratt Institute, along with Eric Chong, Canada's first MasterChef, to envision what an inclusive, thoughtful mealtime would look like when design intersects with aging, culture and memory. Guests took home custom ceramic plates designed by Lee and Huynh (cover photo), designed with affordances for adults to be able to scoop food easier on to a spoon.
Juror’s Choice Award (selected by Boris Yu) – Dying.exhibits 2023 by Dying.Series Collective
Dr. Kate Sellen, Director of the Health Design Studio, alum Karen Oikonen (Strategic Foresight & Innovation, 2015) and CEO and founder at Taboo Health Maria Cheung are the co-founders and artists of the Dying.series, and co-curators of Dying.exhibits, with support from Laura Guida. This is an in-person exhibition series on end of life, inviting participants to think about their relationship with life and death.
Juror’s Choice Award (selected by Khatereh Baharikhoob) – Nowhere is a Place on Earth by Joan Nuguid
Joan Nuguid graduated from Digital Painting & Expanded Animation: Drawing & Painting in 2022. Nuguid focuses on experimental and narrative animation, exploring questions of identity, land placement, and relationships both human and non-human.
See the full list of 2023 DesignTO Awards winners.
If you are a member of the OCAD U community and your 2023 DesignTO Award is not listed above, please contact csharma@ocadu.ca.